By playing the dual roles of an alcoholic Kinight in Shining Armor and The Little Tramp who engage in a comic rivalry over a seductive and beautiful but sorely neglected and depressed Nell Gwyn-like heroine (played by Edna Purviance), Chaplin playfully re-created his family romance in The Idle Class. Photo (top left) shows the lonely wife of a boozy “knight” in photo (top right). Photo (bottom left) shows Charlie starting a flirtation with “Nell” until he is caught in the act by her alcoholic husband—a whimsical allusion to Charlie Chaplin Sr. In this film Chaplin got to play himself and his father and do a witty send-up of the role alcohol had played in the demise of his parents’ marriage.